May 16, 2013

NYC’s Old Fashioned is Nick Ramirez and Katie Sicking, two ex-Austinites that were heavily involved in Austin comedy. Both doing a huge amount of improv, a lil bit of stand-up, and an impressive amount of sketch. Nick with Midnight Society and Hot Property, and Katie with Rattlesnake and The Hustle Show. ASF is shiny with glee about their return appearance as Old Fashioned, performing Sunday along with Unsuspectingly Sponsored By and Kat Ramzinski. We emailed Nick and Katie some questions, they faxed us some answers.

You guys moved from Austin to NYC last year. How’s that been going, y’know, comedy wise?

Katie Sicking: It’s tough going from a town where you did 3-4 shows a week to going to a town where you have to build up your street cred from scratch, but I think we’ve both accomplished great things in the time we’ve been here.

Nick Ramirez: New York is cool. I wear sweaters more now.

Katie: There are bagels.

Butter us up, what do you miss about Austin?

Nick: The girls.

Katie: That’s not fucking funny, Nick.

Nick: I miss the tex-mex.

Katie: I miss all of my Austin pals, but what I miss most is how Mac Blake takes his weekly dump right in the ColdTowne Theater parking lot every Monday. It’s super gross but he’s so passionate about always doing that, just pooping in public. I hope that as the editor of this blog he doesn’t censor me.

Katie: Well, we live together, so there’s never really a distinct break between the writer’s room and just hangin’ out. It’s very organic, we’re constantly doin’ bits, rewriting things, polishing stuff.

Nick: Yeah.

Thanks for helping out with that answer, Nick.

Nick: No prob.

What’s your favorite show that you’ve done?

Nick: There was a show we did once at 12am, and we had to cast the third part to whoever was around the theater at that point.

Katie: Oh yeah! I recognized this girl name Emily Bogue from a workshop we had taken together and we asked her. She was so funny in our show! That was actually how we became friends.

Nick: We didn’t think the audience would be that big but it was pretty full, and everything came together just right.

What are you looking forward to at Austin Sketch Fest?

Nick: I’m going to see Paul McCartney!

Katie: That’s not a part of Austin Sketch Fest, you doofus.

Nick: No, Paul McCartney is playing at ColdTowne Theater on Wednesday at 10pm!

Katie: No, that’s P! Company, not Paul McCartney.

Nick: I hope he plays “Yesterday”!

What can we expect from your ASF show?

Nick: Our show isn’t a random collection of sketches, it’s a cohesive show centered around a radio station pledge drive.

Katie: It’s going to be very good. This is a show that we’ve been working on and doing for 6 months.

Was that a goal, to do a show with a more prominent through-line?

Nick: Yes, absolutely. We wanted to produce something that felt like a complete work.

Katie: We wanted the show to be as polished and engrossing as possible.

Also HOT SEAT question, since you live together, who has the worse taste in music?

Katie: Uh, I think we both lose. I like Herb Alpert and instrumental movie soundtracks.

Nick: And I mostly listen to ska.

Katie: He insisted that one of his improv groups go under the name “Ska Wars”

I lost a lot of good friends in the Ska Wars.

Old Fashioned performs Sunday 8pm May 26th at the SpiderHouse Ballroom along with Unsuspectingly Sponsored By and Kat Ramzinski. Tickets here.